[RascalPuff]

http://etext.virginia.edu/DicHist/alpha/A-B.html

An information recorder in alphabetical order.
Volumetric treasure beyond linear measure.

Poetry (Excerpt from the alphabetical URL)

"
At the end of the seventeenth century, poetry was
confronted with a new enemy. The rise of science and
the Cartesian philosophy induced many people, espe-
cially in France, to condemn poetry as a foolish and
useless relic of barbaric ages. This attitude charac-
terized some of the participants in the great quarrel
about the Ancients and the Moderns, e.g., Abbé Jean
Terrasson. Less extreme and therefore more dangerous
was the condescending tolerance of poetry as a social
amusement, expressed by Fontenelle. Against this de-
preciation old Boileau and young Voltaire protested
strongly. But early romantic writers accepted the chal-
lenge: poetry is, indeed, a creation of barbarism and
therefore admirable. The proclamation of this thesis
by Giambattista Vico (1730) and Thomas Blackwell
(1735) means the end of the concept of the poeta doctus
and of European classicism.
3. The Craft of Poetry. The rising self-confidence
of poets in the late Middle Ages appears also in their
renewed insistence on inspiration. The poems of the
troubadours and of the dolce stil nuovo are inspired
by Love and the Lady, as is Dante's Vita nuova. In
the Divina commedia (Divine Comedy), Dante's invo-
cations of Apollo and the Muses are no mere metaphors
but express his belief in the hidden truth of pagan
mythology. His poem is “sacred.”
In Petrarch, the idea of poetical ecstasy emerges
again, and in the fifteenth century the direct contact
with Plato makes the furor poeticus a popular idea,
developed by Ficino and accepted by many poets and
critics, e.g., Scaliger, Ronsard, and Puttenham. This
does not imply, as in Plato, any negative or ironical
assessment of the poet's own activity, which on the
contrary is stressed to the utmost.
The poet is regarded as a second Creator, inferior
to God but akin to him. This divinization of Man as
Poet—later on applied to the artist—originated in
Florentine Platonism and was first stated by Christoforo
Landino (1481). It was inspired by Platonic and Her-
metic belief in the unique cosmic status of Man, by
Christian belief in a Creator, and by Plato's Demiurge.
The poet as creator became a metaphor popular with
many poets and critics, such as Scaliger, Tasso, and
Sidney, though mostly with reservations.
The theologians of the Reformation and the Counter-
Reformation could no more than their medieval pred-
ecessors accept profane poetry as inspired. Therefore,
in their great religious epics both Tasso and Milton
invoke a “Heavenly Muse.”
But even some critics like Castelvetro rejected
inspiration because it made poetics superfluous. Indeed,
a few libertines or freethinkers, like Pietro Aretino or
Giordano Bruno drew this conclusion. But most authors
combined faith in inspiration with obedience to tradi-
tion and the rules.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the idea
of poetical inspiration and creativity fades away. It is
taken for granted that the poet should be inspired,
particularly if he writes an ode and breaks into
“Pindaric frenzy.” But critics and readers smile or
frown at boasts of inspiration and find the usual invo-
cations frigid, as Shaftesbury did. To the new enemies
of poetry all talk of inspiration is silly.
Shaftesbury did not belong to them. In spite of his
attacks on “Enthousiasm,” his Soliloquy (1710) exalts
the Poet as Creator with a Renaissance fervor. We are
on the threshold of romanticism.
For all its glorification of the poet the Renaissance
did not call him a “genius.” The Latin word was used
but in the neutral sense of innate disposition, good or
bad. And it was thus used by Boileau and even by Dr.
Johnson. In seventeenth-century France, however,
génie was increasingly used in a positive sense, until
the Abbé Du Bos in his Réflexions critiques sur la poésie
et la peinture (1719) gave it its present absolute mean-
ing. The romantic genius was born."

[austintorn@aol.com]

Poet Tree

Poems are renderings of the soul’s spirit,
The highest power of language and wit.
The reader then translates back to spirit
If the soul responds, then a poem you’ve writ!

A poem provides universal advice;
It’s structured, intense, rhythmical, concise—
A unified body of sensation,
Thoughts, and passions. You’ll want to read it twice!

A poem is both the thought and the presence,
An object born from one’s profoundest sense,
An image of diction, feeling, and rhythm—
It’s both the existence and the essence.

A poem is a truth fleshed in living words
That, showing unapprehended proof,
Lift the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.

Poetry makes immortal what is best
In life: it frees images of dreams impressed,
Apprehends the vanishing phantasms,
And sends them forth in fine words, fully dressed.

Poetry makes clear what is barely heard,
When it translates soul-language into words,
Whereas, melody plays straight on the heart.
Merged, they create song—heart and soul converge.

Words echo the soul’s vocabulary,
Being just a shadow of what’s primary;
But, once ideas have been fully grasped,
Mere words are no longer necessary.

Poetry lives silently in an illustration.
The beauty of a poem is painting with diction.
These, like music, are mere works of worldly art
They’re just shadows of ultimate perfection!

Poets love nature, thought, art, and beauty.
Keats enchants the senses with imagery.
Shelley unveils the spirit’s mystery.
Byron lays open the earth’s majesty.

I ran breathless through meadow and forest,
Fast pursued by the stings of wind and rain;
On and on I wandered, wild without rest,
Searching for a haven from life’s dull pain.

The storm chased me till I could go no more;
I stood helpless, backed up against a door.
I fell through it before death could touch me,
My fall cushioned by the dreams supporting me.

I found a garden half as old as time,
In which poets could write and live their rhyme
While the nightingale created the rose,
By moonlight magic from the thoughts sublime.

The scene unfolded before me, such as
Music often approaches and surrounds,
And builds on the vibrance which in one is,
To fill all that lives with beautiful sounds.

I brushed aside the webs of gossamer,
As came to life all that I remember:
My quick thoughts fell, condensing into dew,
As living dreams unveiled all that I knew.

I wandered down memory’s path,
Aglow in the soft beauty that it hath.
I saw Johnny Keats kissing Fanny Brawne,
As he spoke more than words but less than song.

And Byron, endowing form with fancy,
While Wordsworth penned his thoughts to Lucy,
And Shelley, plumbing the depths of mystery.
I read them all; now they’re a part of me.

Deeper still I probed, looking in on it,
And heard Mrs. Browning reading a sonnet.
Poetically I took them all in, even
The shadowy Emily Dickenson.

So there I rested, up against a tree,
Savoring the feeling of their poetry,
Where all the flowers used in Shakespeare’s plays
Grew together in a living bouquet.

And there beneath the rose tree, Old Khayyam
Wrote his verse, looking younger than I am;
He lived the proof of his philosophy,
The writing of which was only secondary.

My quick thoughts rose, mist rising from the dew,
While living dreams unveiled more than I knew.
From poetry’s light a garden grew,
Revealing mysterious wonders new.

All this I remember, and much more,
But I don’t write as much as before,
For living and feeling come first in life,
And now I’ve a garden I can’t ignore.

[Graybeard]

Austin ... 'And there beneath the rose tree, Old Khayyam Wrote his verse, looking younger than I am; He lived the proof of his philosophy, The writing of which was only secondary.'

Austin ... your the man with the pen !!

cool bananas ... greg

[MJA]

SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

I climbed upon a giant
So that I could better see,
But found the incredible hieght
Only obscured my sight.

Standing on his shoulders
With the thoughts of a better view,
Instead of seeing more that day
The view took me futher away.

With my head stuck in the clouds
Questioning questions and more questions,
I found myself lost
The giant's shoulders the cost.

Uncertainty from this elevation
Brought me much fear,
Perhaps it was only the complexity of the view
That sent my sight and mind askew.

The perception was different there
It seemed so far away,
Better to stand on the ground
To see all that is around, nature's truth abound.

Climbing off the giant
Was not that easy to do,
Simplification became the ladder
Taking me back to the ground, and all that mattered.

Once on the ground again
My mind seemed to clear, much less fear,
Their was no more dizziness bouts,
clouds, and much less doubts.

Perhaps then, the giants view
Only took me futher from what is true,
For now I stand on the ground
Where nature is sound.

And if others say
I look the wrong way,
The shoulders of giants
Is where I must stay.

The truth is not there
it is only here,
simplicity the path,
The direction is clear.

Back to the ground
Where all is found,
Back to square one
Where all is true, and all is one.

MJA

[austintorn@aol.com]

New 9th Planet Found!

Poor Pluto’s been banished to the underworld,
Charon rowing him to the land of the forgotten.
Schoolchildren petitioned for his return,
But he was voted off of our solar island.

Memory’s crutch for the order of the planets,
Is now just “MVEMJSUN”—
Old Pluto tried so darn hard, its position
Now even closer to the sun than Neptune’s.

Well, many have searched for quite a while for
The next planet without any success;
There have been hoaxes, theories, and some ghosts;
But, I have firm proof of another planet.

But, first, a review of some poor attempts:
“Vulcan” was spotted very close to the sun,
And “existed” for about five days,
But now is relegated to the Star Trek World.

Another “Vulcan”, impossible to see,
Being 180 degrees away from Earth,
Behind the sun, was seen in the movie
“Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”.

Could an asteroid like Eris be a planet?
Nope, not allowed, although all of the
Debris between Mars and Jupiter
Could have come from an unstable planet.

Nice try, but it’s not out there anymore,
And any planets of other solar systems
Don’t count, nor does Planet Hollywood
Or Daily Planet or any other restaurants.

Perhaps there’s another planet way out,
Beyond; that may be so, but, no matter,
Though it may become the 10th planet, since
I have found the newest 9th with no doubt.

The 9th planet does follow an orbit
Close to Earth’s, ever falling toward the sun—
It is right under our nose: It’s the moon!
But, wait, you say, it is Earth’s satellite.

Our moon is unique in the solar system—
It’s not captured by the Earth, but by the sun,
It’s orbit being everywhere concave to Sol.
(Thanks to Issac Asimov for proving this.)

Never does our moon fall away from the sun,
For it’s attracted to it about twice as much
As it is to the Earth, although the moon and
The Earth do form a double planet system
That revolves about a common point that
Happens to be inside of the Earth.

(No time to rhyme.)

[RascalPuff]

Hey. Not to poop this thread's rhyming scoop, but:
Couldn't a given sunspot - a big one (or two) be construed as a planet, between Mercury and the Sun proper? (Just asking?)

Regards,
- RP

[MJA]

Nice thread RP,

Rhyming is fun, but so are questions of the sun.

Questions: Does the sun spin on an axis, and if so, how fast?
What reference point on the sun would the measurer or scientist use?
If there was a planet nearer to the Sun than Earth, that traveled at the
same rotational speed as the Sun, how would one tell the difference between a planet and a Sun spot?

Thanks,
MJA

[RascalPuff]

Originally Posted by MJA Nice thread RP, Rhyming is fun, but so are questions of the sun. Questions: Does the sun spin on an axis, and if so, how fast? What reference point on the sun would the measurer or scientist use? If there was a planet nearer to the Sun than Earth, that traveled at the same rotational speed as the Sun, how would one tell the difference between a planet and a Sun spot? Thanks, MJA

______________________________

Dear MJA:

Yes indeed, the sun does spin on an axis, though I don't know how fast (there's a research project).

The reference point would be the sunspot(s) itself (themselves).

If it's permanent, it may qualify as a planet, since the 'surface' of the sun is the light frontal of the first rays it emitted and the sunspot therefore would not be - per se - 'floating' on any 'surface', but rather, it is orbiting the sun and I speculate that the rotation of larger sunspots do not exactly correspond with the rotational - angular momentum - of the sun.

Though, once again, I'm only speculating about a rotational difference between the sun and some if not all of it's 'spots' - which are not really surficial, for the afore specified reason of the sun's actual surface being the frontal of the first rays it omnidirectionally emitted. Of course, to this speculation I'm not entirely committed...

RSVP

- RP

[austintorn@aol.com]

RP,

I am amazed that you found another planet!
Only you could plan it!

[austintorn@aol.com]

Worldly Love
___________________________

I am thy moon, thy constant satellite,
Thy crystal paramour of day and night.
Above and below, and within thy sight,
I whirl around you in loving delight.

In a magnetic dance I whirl and twirl,
Attracted to you, the liveliest world.
Around you as a necklace I’m aswirl—
Wear me as thy crystalline gem impearled.

Wherever thou orbits ’round Apollo,
I must twirl and whirl, hurry and follow.
Dust I gather, meteors I swallow,
Ranging far and wide through space not hollow.

Thy romantic beam, like Cupid’s arrow,
Pierces my heart and kills my sorrow,
Injecting life and love, for tomorrow;
Henceforth, I’ll shine with this light I borrow.

Around you I whirl, a necklace of pearl,
Trailing afterimages of my world,
Adorning you, thy bosom bountiful,
With crystalline gems from another world.

As twin planets, our orbits must convolve;
Into each our tidal motions dissolve.
Around a common center we revolve—
The focus from which our passions evolve.

As twin planets, each other’s way we pave,
With the push-pulse of the graviton wave.
We’re captured, but not as each other’s slave,
For to the sun our orbits are concave.

To your lines of flux my path I align—
I’m your constant paramour, crystalline.
Your world pours life on mine, on mine!
Dearest Earth, I must be thine, must be thine!

A magnetic beam emanates from thee,
Attracting me, holding me, kissing me.
Tidal love washes freely over me,
Linking you and me for eternity.

Basking warmly in your reflected light,
I’m bright, oh so radiant in your sight!
In the love and light of your spirit bright,
I need not ever face the endless night.

Your vibrations travel without a sound,
Circling from all directions to surround.
This affection touches me, ’round and ’round,
And closely binds me to you—I’m love-bound!

We’re as different as midnight and noon,
Yet drawn close by the force of Earth and moon.
As lovers, we merge in a sweet eclipse,
When world meets world as a kiss on our lips.

Oh, as your shadow of love covers me,
I am full, so full in the shade of thee.
When we overlap, that union is us
The you is in me, the me is in thee!

As moon and Earth we bathe in radiance,
Cleansing our hearts in love’s grand alliance.
’Round and ’round each other we dance, entranced,
Revolving in the whirl of love’s dalliance.


(some inspired by Shelley and expanded upon)